Google Tries to Buy Auto-Tune the News

Following AOL’s example of buying HuffPo to help transform itself into America’s content farm, Google is close to acquiring Next New Networks, the company behind web series like Auto-Tune the News, as well as online networks like Channel Frederator, Hungry Nation, and Comedy Thunder. Google’s plan with NNN, which has more than 5 million subscribers, is to professionalize its offering on YouTube. If the deal closes, Google would also pick up NNN’s considerable original content, possibly becoming a de facto studio in terms of aggregating produced videos, presumably to sell ads against them. Guess we won’t be watching coverage of Google’s antitrust trial interspersed with white boys doing their best T-Pain. [WSJ]